Eric Holder: ‘This administration has revealed their lack of judgment [that] will take this nation back to a discredited past.’
Photograph: Alamy Stock Photo

Donald Trump is pursuing “dangerous” policies on crime that ignore a growing bipartisan consensus on criminal justice reform, former attorney general Eric Holder said on Wednesday at a summit in Washington.

Holder, the US’s first black attorney general, joined police chiefs, elected officials and other advocates at the National Law Enforcement Summit on Crime in pressing Trump and his attorney general, Jeff Sessions, on recent actions by the administration that have amounted to a return to the tough-on-crime tactics of the 1990s.

“They are not tough on crime, they are not smart on crime,” Holder said.

The Trump administration’s decision to reinstate policies such as mandatory minimums for non-violent drug crimes, he added, was “disappointing, dispiriting and ultimately dangerous”.

“This administration has revealed their lack of judgment,” Holder said, “[that] will take this nation back to a discredited past.”

With Sessions at its helm, the justice department has taken several steps to roll back Obama-era initiatives that were designed to address racial bias in the criminal justice system.

In May, the attorney general announced a new directive that encouraged stricter mandatory minimum sentences by ordering federal prosecutors to “charge and pursue the most serious, readily provable offense”.

Sessions also rescinded an order from Barack Obama that directed the justice department to reduce the use of private prisons. The Obama administration had sought to phase out private prisons, arguing at the time that the facilities were less safe and more costly.

Other reversals under the Trump administration have included lifting Obama-era restrictions on providing police departments with military gear, the use of which drew widespread criticism during the 2014 protests in Ferguson, Missouri, following the killing of Michael Brown, an unarmed black teenager, by a white police officer. Law enforcement officials have also been provided with renewed authority to seize assets from suspects even if they have not been convicted of a crime, marking a return to controversial civil forfeiture policies that have been banned in some states.

Holder said such moves were “ideologically motivated”, while framing the moment as a flashpoint in the debate over criminal justice reform and racial profiling.

“I believe our country is at a crossroads,” Holder said. “We run the risk of igniting another drug war that will fill our jails.”

The former attorney general’s views were echoed by conservatives at the event, such as Mark Holden, the senior vice-president and general counsel of Koch Industries. The billionaire Koch brothers, who remain Republican mega-donors, have been vocal proponents of criminal justice and policing reform.

On Capitol Hill, Republicans and Democrats have similarly forged rare collaborations on legislation that would lower mandatory minimums for low-level drug crimes, promote community policing and target recidivism by investing in education and re-entry programs for former offenders.

While Holden held back from openly criticizing the Trump administration, he reinforced the message that what was being done away with were bipartisan priorities.

“We are hopeful the administration will listen,” he said. “It’s a moral case, it’s a constitutional case.”